What do you get paid?

desaparecidos

I'd like to compare my salary with others, may be the jolt I need to move on and find a better employer.

Specify company type / freelancer, responsibility, technologies used on a daily basis etc.

Company: Large, well know, work as part of a web design / development team.

Responsibility: Interface with customers, sell services, gather requirements, develop new sites / applications, provide web support for existing sites.

Technologies used: HTML, CSS, Javascript, Photoshop, SharePoint, .NET. Mostly front end / client side development. Javascript / Jquery / Dojo heavy applications mostly.

Salary: 28K

Experience: 2yrs

MyBusinez.com

Hi Desaparecidos,
The first thing I will say is be very careful what you do right now. It is an employers market out there and 2 years experience is next to nothing in the web development industry. If you leave your current employment you WILL BE VERY LUCKY to get another job. The last thing you want to do is leave a decent paying job to get another one and end up with no job. Take if from a web developer with 14 years experience in the industry. Also, if you leave your current employer you may not even be eligible for social welfare.

For 2 years experience I would say 28k is a very decent wage, especially in the current climate when people are being let go and c 450,000 people are out of work. When I had 2 years experience I was only getting €15k and that was in the good times.

My advice: Keep working, keep saving for your future. Even if you hate what you are doing right now. I can't be certain but I am guessing you're quite young (20s?), maybe still living at home with very few bills. This could change within about 5 - 10 years and any money you have might disappear in an instant! Right now, save, save, save your money. Even if you hate your job, save, save, save. You have your whole life ahead of you. You could have 80 years ahead of you when you think about it. So getting a bit of money in while you're young will help you.

I'd hate to see a guy in a good position end up with a lot less than he currently has.

I wish you all the best for the future and I hope things work out well for you, not just in the short term. Good luck with it all.

cormee

desaparecidos wrote: »

I'd like to compare my salary with others, may be the jolt I need to move on and find a better employer.

Specify company type / freelancer, responsibility, technologies used on a daily basis etc.

Company: Large, well know, work as part of a web design / development team.

Responsibility: Interface with customers, sell services, gather requirements, develop new sites / applications, provide web support for existing sites.

Technologies used: HTML, CSS, Javascript, Photoshop, SharePoint, .NET. Mostly front end / client side development. Javascript / Jquery / Dojo heavy applications mostly.

Salary: 28K

Experience: 2yrs

Do you have any Dynamics CRM experience?

S.M.B.

Wow!

Is the state of the web development industry that bad in Ireland at the moment where even the idea of changing jobs is an enormous risk?

Now I'm depressed.

Placebo

well i left my job in ireland, now im based in the uk, havent had a proper look for jobs yet but after 3 years i was still on €30k, which just wasnt enough for me. I think ive accumulated around 4 years solid experience, 5 if you count the freelance work.

S.M.B.

I was looking to go the opposite direction in the next year or two. Based in the UK at the moment and accumulating experience in a reasonably paid job.

I was hoping moving back to Ireland would be an option in the near future.

BarackPyjama

MyBusinez.com wrote: »

It is an employers market out there

No it's not. There's a massive shortage of skilled and intelligent people in the web industry right now and employers in almost every blue chip industry are crying out for digital talent.

MyBusinez.com wrote: »

and 2 years experience is next to nothing in the web development industry.

Any employer worth working for doesn't care about experience. It's about attitude, ability, etc. Obviously a lot of this will come with experience... but not necessarily.

MyBusinez.com wrote: »

If you leave your current employment you WILL BE VERY LUCKY to get another job.

Not if you're any good. Assuming you have an in-depth knowledge required skills (HTML, CSS, Javascript, Photoshop, SharePoint, .NET. Mostly front end / client side development. Javascript / Jquery / Dojo) and are a strong developer, you'll walk into a job.

MyBusinez.com wrote: »

The last thing you want to do is leave a decent paying job to get another one and end up with no job. Take if from a web developer with 14 years experience in the industry.

For 2 years experience I would say 28k is a very decent wage, especially in the current climate when people are being let go and c 450,000 people are out of work. When I had 2 years experience I was only getting €15k and that was in the good times.

Sorry to offend you but you mustn't be very good. I was earning about €45,000 per annum after 2 years before the dot com bubble burst. Way too much considering my experience but I can't understand how you were earning €15k when people were paying €30k for brochure sites.

MyBusinez.com wrote: »

My advice: Keep working, keep saving for your future. Even if you hate what you are doing right now. I can't be certain but I am guessing you're quite young (20s?), maybe still living at home with very few bills. This could change within about 5 - 10 years and any money you have might disappear in an instant! Right now, save, save, save your money. Even if you hate your job, save, save, save. You have your whole life ahead of you. You could have 80 years ahead of you when you think about it. So getting a bit of money in while you're young will help you.

Appalling advice. Do what makes you happy and don't ever stay in a job that you're unhappy in.

MyBusinez.com wrote: »

I'd hate to see a guy in a good position end up with a lot less than he currently has.

The industry's buoyant. If you're good you'll get another job in a heartbeat. If you're not good, it might be the incentive you need to consider working in another industry anyway.

pixelburp

MyBusinez.com wrote: »

Hi Desaparecidos,
[...]If you leave your current employment you WILL BE VERY LUCKY to get another job. [...]

I'm not one to attack other people's posts, but this comment and much of what comes after is completely untrue, mis-representative of the market, and pretty much unhelpful. Scaring people into staying in a position they're unhappy in is not very useful.

desaparecidos, your job description is a little bit fuzzy, but I take it from the skillset mention that you're mostly a front-end developer, merged with full web development?

First of all, ignore the scaremongering of MyBusinez (though naturally can't comment on his/her own personal scenario), there's still plenty of work out there; some avenues of work have dried up, but by and large if you do a jobsearch using your keywords you'll find a lot of positions. Not all of them set the pulse racing, but the industry is healthier than others in this country.

Regards wages, what you can expect to earn not only depends on your own skillset, but (I find) tends to depend on the company hiring too. Start-ups and SMEs are less likely to throw the cash around than (say) a large multinational company looking for an internal web-dev, so it's hard to give an accurate figure on what you can expect. 28k seems to be a little on the low side against a shopping-list of your skills, but I'm just spit-balling & generalising a little.

Having said that, if you have 2 years experience - and its experience you can quantify & standover in terms of its quality - what it gives you is leverage in any interview situation to discuss a larger package for yourself. 90% of employers just use "years" as a yardstick to filter out candidates: by and large it's the quality of work that stands out. So 2, 12 or 20 years of experience is no substitute for good work you can be proud of.

I suppose really the first question should be - what do YOU (desaparecidos) want to do in your next position? Is it just about more money or is there a particular avenue you wish to go down?

Goodshape

+1 to pixelburp and BarackPyjama. I've been freelancing for the past six months and in that time almost exclusively working with agencies who are unable to find (and/or keep hold of) the talented full-time developers they desire. This "current climate" and "employers market" talk just doesn't hold true as far as I can see.

OP, I'm not sure that €28k is all that bad given two years experience -- but as others have said, talent and enthusiasm (to learn, to stick with it, to create and build something brilliant) can often be just as important as "years". Is it literally two years since you first opened a code editor? Or is it two years paid work following a decade of learning / hobby websites / pet-projects? It can all count for something if you sell yourself right.


Bottom line: forget everything MyBusinez.com has said above. If you are unhappy where you are, for whatever reason, now is a fine time to start looking for alternatives. €28k might not be bad but it's the lower end of the scale for a talented dev at the moment.

S.M.B.

The last few replies are more along the lines I was expecting.

I didn't want to knock MyBusinez.com's post because I've very little knowledge of the industry in Ireland at the moment but I was astonished to hear it was that bad.

Placebo

every site on this listning here: http://www.design-intellect.co.uk/top_50_digital_agencies_list.html
has an applicable vacancy of some sort, now this is no reflection on the irish job market but i guess an insight on the state of the industry itself.

Some of those companies look delicious, time to do up my portfolio.

John_Mc

OP, I had similar skills to yours after 2 years and I was on €36k. However, I agree with others that experience measured in years isn't always accurate. I spent a LOT of my spare time working on nixers and personal projects, often coding for 12 hours a day 6 days a week, so I had more technical experience and knowledge than many other developers with 2 years experience. My first employer agreed but would not give me a raise of any significant amount, so I moved on and got a new job.

You only make real gains in salary when you change jobs, because no company will ever just give you an extra 10% in your annual review. Even if that's the market rate.

Salary issues aside, I also think you are better off moving on every couple of years after graduating to build up a more rounded and broader skill set. It's also healthy to see how different companies operate.

When you do go looking for a job don't focus too much on the salary. Look at the broader package they are offering. You'll usually get Health insurance and a pension, but what about career progression or training?

I started with a a new company about a year ago and was on a great salary, but I realised on day one that it would be a step back in terms of career progression. I moved on again to a new job at the end of the month, and it was offering 4k less but a way better package overall.

The difference between €28k and €36k in your monthly income is not as much you would think. You will simply get used to having an extra few quid each month, so you'll need to get your job satisfaction from other parts of your career.